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SPORTS A21
Kyrgios beat Tsonga
Continued from Page 17
“Playing Jo, I was obviously
very nervous. He was a guy
I looked up to as a kid. Still didn’t make it through to
do,” Kyrgios said in an on-
court interview, recounting
how he brought a ball to
be signed by Tsonga every
day when the Frenchman
reached the Australian
Open final in 2008.
Then he gave a nod to
Smith, the actor he would
pick to play the role of Kyr-
gios if there was a movie to
be made.
“When I saw him out here
I was so nervous. No joke,”
Kyrgios said.
“People think I’m cool, but
I wanted him to think I was
the coolest person ever.”
Cool was the optimal
word late on Day 5, when
a threatening heat wave
subsided and no matches
were suspended despite
searing temperatures hit-
ting 40 degrees Celsius (104
degrees Fahrenheit) at
Melbourne Park for a sec-
ond straight day.
The Kyrgios-Tsonga match
pushed top-ranked Ra-
fael Nadal onto the No. 2
court at Melbourne Park
for his match against Damir
Dzumhur.
The change of scenery
worked for Nadal, who lost
last year’s final to Roger Fe- shade and mist-spraying
derer before going on to
win the French Open and
U.S. Open titles.
Nadal reached the fourth
round in Australia for the
11th time with the 6-1, 6-3,
6-1 win.
He will next play No. 24 Di-
ego Schwartzman, who
beat Aleksandr Dolgopo-
lov 6-7 (1), 6-2, 6-3, 6-3.
The other French Open
champion, Jelena Ostap-
enko, followed Nadal on
Margaret Court Arena but
the second week, losing
6-3, 1-6, 6-3 to 32nd-seed-
ed Anett Kontaveit.
The seventh-seeded Osta-
penko’s loss left only two
major champions in the
women’s draw. Only one of
them can reach the fourth
round; Maria Sharapova
meets Angelique Kerber to
determine which one.
The youngest player in the
tournament and the oldest
player in the men’s draw
went out on Day 5.
Fourth-seeded Elina Svi-
tolina ended 15-year-old
Marta Kostyuk’s run with a
6-2, 6-2 victory.
Kostyuk entered the tour-
nament ranked No. 521
and her wins in the first
two rounds made her the
youngest player to win
main-draw matches at the
Australian Open since Mar-
tina Hingis in 1996.
Andreas Seppi withstood
52 aces from Ivo Karlovic
for a 6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-7 (3), 6-7
(5), 9-7 win, sending the big
Croat out of the tourna-
ment about a month shy of
his 39th birthday.
Players were bothered and
spectators clamored for
fans earlier Friday, and or-
ganizers were on the verge
of enforcing the tourna-
ment’s extreme heat pol-
icy before temperatures
dropped significantly after
peaking at about 2 p.m.
Alize Cornet, who had her
blood pressure checked
during a medical timeout
in her 7-5, 6-4 third-round
loss to Elise Mertens, was
Saturday 20 January 2018
Nikoloz Basilashvili in five
sets in 3½ hours on an open
Australia’s Nick Kyrgios plays the ball back between his legs to court in the peak of the
Serbia’s Viktor Troicki during their second round match at the heat, earning a spot in the
Australian Open tennis championships in Melbourne, Australia, next round against Seppi.
Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2018. Also, No. 10 Pablo Carreno
Busta beat No. 23 Gilles
Associated Press Muller and will next play
No. 6 Marin Cilic, who had
among those calling for a from 5-1 down in the third a 7-6 (4), 6-3, 7-6 (4) win
review of the limits that de- set to progress through the over Ryan Harrison.
termine when play should second round, Wozniacki As it cooled off, third-
be suspended. advanced 6-4, 6-3 over No. ranked Grigor Dimitrov
“I started to feel dizzy. ... 30 Kiki Bertens on her fourth beat No. 30 Andrey Rublev
I felt that I could faint at match point. 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 to secure
any moment,” Cornet said. ”Nothing to lose. I got a a spot in the fourth round
“Playing in this condition is second chance. I’m just against Kyrgios, who beat
of course very dangerous.” going to try and take it and him at the Brisbane Inter-
Second-seeded Caroline see how far I can go,” said national last month on the
Wozniacki also made it Wozniacki, who will play way to the title.
through. No. 19 Magdalena Ryba- Kyrgios has been a divi-
Two days after saving two- rikova next. sive character in Australia,
match points and rallying Kyle Edmund overcame getting plenty of criticism
for his off-color comments
to Stan Wawrinka about
his girlfriend and his fine in
2016 for showing a “lack
of best efforts,” unsport-
ing conduct and verbally
abusing a spectator at the
Shanghai Masters.
His two previous matches
at Rod Laver Arena have
ended in losses — to five-
time finalist Andy Murray in
2016 and to former Wimble-
don finalist Tomas Berdych
in 2015 — so Kyrgios has
favored the outside courts
until now.
The public perception may
be changing, and he’s
almost a certainty to get
another prime-time slot on
Rod Laver.
“It doesn’t worry me at all.
It’s not something I wake
up and I’m like, ‘Look, to-
day I’m going to try to
change the perception,”
said Kyrgios, who reached
the Wimbledon quarterfi-
nals as a teenager in 2014.
“I’ve always played the
same way. Nothing has
changed. I’ve always been
emotional.”q